Entries in Speech
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Mark Wilson/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Sarah Palin served up a generous helping of conservative red meat on Saturday, comparing President Obama to white-collar criminal Bernie Madoff, mocking New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg for his support of a jumbo soda ban and criticizing the GOP’s post-election attempt at “putting a fresh coat of rhetorical paint on our party” rather than focusing on “restoring the trust of the American people.”

On the final day of the Conservative Political Action Conference just outside Washington, D.C., Palin delivered one of the most well-received speeches of a weekend that has featured the likes of Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. Stopping numerous times for standing ovations, she reserved particular vitriol for President Obama.

“He is considered a good politician,” the former vice presidential nominee said, referring to Obama, “which is like saying Bernie Madoff was a good salesmen. The difference being, the president is using our money.”

She exhorted him to “step away from the teleprompter and do your job.”

Dressed in a zippered black jacket, an American flag cuff, and a gold Star of David, necklace Palin lit up the room. It was a stark contrast to Romney's address on Friday when he did not even mention the president. But her barbs were not only aimed at Obama. She broadened her criticism to include the “permanent political class” who are in “permanent campaign mode.”

“Never before have our challenges been so big and our leaders so small,” Palin said.

The former Alaska governor, whose level influence within the Republican Party is a matter of some debate now that she no longer holds public office, declined to run for president last year and decided against renewing her contract as a political commentator on Fox News, said she brought a message from the “heartland of America,” which was simply this: “Things are bad out here.”

During her remarks, which lasted more than 26 minutes -- much more time that many other prominent speakers were allotted at the three-day gathering of thousands of conservative leaders and activists -- she displayed the same renegade sensibility that won her the admiration of so many Republicans when she emerged from relative obscurity (a “hockey mom from Wasilla,” as she referred to herself on Saturday) to become Sen. John McCain’s running mate in 2008.

“Now is the time to furlough the consultants,” she said, echoing a commonly-heard refrain at this weekend’s conference. “If we truly know what we believe we do not need professionals to tell us.”

And on Saturday she waded in to one of the country’s most intractable policy debates: gun control.

“Background checks? Yeah, I guess to learn more about a person's thinking and associations and intentions. More background checks?” she said. “Dandy idea, Mr. President -- should have started with yours.”

ABC News(WASHINGTON) -- Rep. Ron Paul, the iconic libertarian congressman from Texas, has delivered what will most likely be his final address to Congress.

In a sprawling, 52-minute speech to the House chamber, Paul lambasted U.S. government, politicians and special interests, declaring that the U.S. people must return to virtue before the government allows them to be free, and that the Constitution has failed to limit the scope of an authoritarian bureaucracy.

“Our Constitution, which was intended to limit government power and abuse, has failed,” Paul said. “The Founders warned that a free society depends on a virtuous and moral people. The current crisis reflects that their concerns were justified.”

For the retiring Republican, 77, the “current crisis” isn’t quite what it is for other members of Congress, who routinely use that word to describe the economic recession that followed the 2008 financial crash. To the Texas Republican, that’s part of it, but the causes are deeper, and it’s also a crisis of governmental authoritarianism and the vanishing of personal liberty.

“If it’s not accepted that big government, fiat money, ignoring liberty, central economic planning, welfarism, and warfarism caused our crisis, we can expect a continuous and dangerous march toward corporatism and even fascism with even more loss of our liberties,” said Dr. Paul, an obstetrician-gynecologist by training.

The problem isn’t just government’s size, but its use of force, both in starting preemptive wars and as it coerces U.S. citizens with police power, he says. To Paul, this is the fault of Americans who no longer prioritize liberty, and it will lead to the unraveling of orderly society unless people change.

“Restraining aggressive behavior is one thing, but legalizing a government monopoly for initiating aggression can only lead to exhausting liberty associated with chaos, anger and the breakdown of civil society,” Paul said. “We now have a standing army of armed bureaucrats in the TSA, CIA, FBI, Fish and Wildlife, FEMA, IRS, Corp of Engineers, etc., numbering over 100,000 civil society.”

More than coercive, to Paul the government is also corrupt: “All branches of our government today are controlled by individuals who use their power to undermine liberty and enhance the welfare/warfare state-and frequently their own wealth and power,” he said.

Throughout his speech, Paul questioned not only the fundamental health of America’s social compact, but specifics like fiat money, the power of the Federal Reserve, the PATRIOT Act, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act modifications, undeclared war, the illegalization of medical marijuana, mandatory sentencing requirements for drug crimes, the illegalization of hemp, TSA searches, federal debt and borrowing, the White House’s authority to assassinate those it declares terrorists, the legalization of detaining U.S. citizens for national-security purposes, the political power of AIPAC, and the regulation of light bulbs and toilets in people’s homes.

For Paul, the list of grievances is long, and he might not have accomplished much in Congress: “In many ways, according to conventional wisdom, my off-and-on career in Congress, from 1976 to 2012, accomplished very little,” he said. “No named legislation, no named federal buildings or highways, thank goodness. In spite of my efforts, the government has grown exponentially, taxes remain excessive, and the prolific increase of incomprehensible regulations continues. Wars are constant and pursued without congressional declaration.”

In thinking about the champions of liberty, his lesson is a bitter one: “History has shown that the masses have been quite receptive to the promises of authoritarians which are rarely if ever fulfilled,” but his prescription is hopeful.

Paul left the podium, for the last time, offering an “answer” to all of these problems: that people should choose liberty and limit government, and seek change within themselves.

“The number one responsibility for each of us is to change ourselves with hope that others will follow,” Paul said, urging an end to two motives that have hindered U.S. society: envy and intolerance.

“I have come to one firm conviction after these many years of trying to figure out the plain truth of things. The best chance for achieving peace and prosperity, for the maximum number of people worldwide, is to pursue the cause of liberty. If you find this to be a worthwhile message, spread it throughout the land.”

Melina Mara/The Washington Post(ORANGE CITY, Iowa) -- In his first public campaign event in five days, Mitt Romney gave a scathing review of President Obama’s convention speech, referring to it as “extraordinarily, surprisingly disappointing.”

“I was surprised by his address because I expected him to confront the major challenges of the last four years, which is an economy which has not produced the jobs that the American people need,” said Romney, who said that he had read, but didn’t watch, Obama’s speech last night.

“I expected him to talk about 23 million people, or at least to talk about the unemployed in America. I expected him to talk about the number of families having a hard time making ends meet. The number of middle income families who have seen the cost of health care insurance go up, the cost of food go up, the cost of gasoline go up, even as their incomes have gone down, I expected him to talk about these things,” said Romney.

“No. Instead it was a whole series of new promises that he ultimately won’t be able to keep because the policies he believes in and the direction he’s pulling will not make America stronger. If President Obama were reelected we would have four more years of the last four years and the American people are going to say no to that.”

“Now you might have expected the president of the United States to lay out a plan of what he would do to get the economy going again, and get people working again and he didn’t do that last night,” Romney continued. “Again, that was surprising to me. I laid out the things that I’m going to do to get this economy going.”

Romney, speaking in a state with one of the nation’s lowest unemployment rates, said that while he’s "trying to look beyond” the bad news from Friday morning’s jobs report, it was still “simply unimaginable.”

“The president said that by this time we’d be at 5.4 percent unemployment … instead, we’re at about eight percent. And you know the difference that that makes in how many people would be working in America? Nine million people. Had he been able to keep his promise, had his, had his policies worked as he thought they would, there’d be nine million more Americans working,” said Romney.

Romney heads next to the swing state of New Hampshire, where Obama just wrapped up a campaign even of his own.

Mark Wilson/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- In his first interview since the infamous invisible Obama empty chair routine that transfixed the Republican National Convention last month, Clint Eastwood says the Romney campaign didn’t know what he was going to say and he didn’t come up with the empty chair idea until he was about to go on stage.

“They vet most of the people, but I told them, ‘You can’t do that with me, because I don’t know what I’m going to say,’” Eastwood told the Carmel Pine Cone of Carmel, California.

He says he came up with the idea to interview an absent Obama just before taking the stage.

“There was a stool there, and some fella kept asking me if I wanted to sit down,” Eastwood said. “When I saw the stool sitting there, it gave me the idea. I’ll just put the stool out there and I’ll talk to Mr. Obama and ask him why he didn’t keep all of the promises he made to everybody.”

The only person he told about the idea was the stage hand, he said.

“The guy said, ‘You mean you want it at the podium?’ and I said, ‘No, just put it right there next to it.’”

Eastwood said he’s not used to giving speeches, but in his estimation, that was supposed to be part of his draw for independent voters that might be watching.

“It was supposed to be a contrast with all the scripted speeches, because I’m Joe Citizen,” Eastwood said. “I’m a movie maker, but I have the same feelings as the average guy out there,” he said.Check out the entire interview from the Carmel Pine Cone.Watch Eastwood’s empty chair speech:

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images(CHARLOTTE, N.C.) -- President Obama, greeted by tumultuous cheers of Democratic Party stalwarts, promised to lead America to a "better place" Thursday night if voters agree to follow the "harder" and "longer" path he has mapped to restore the country's economy and the sense of hope and opportunity.

"America, I never said this journey would be easy, and I won't promise that now," he told his party's convention. "Yes, our path is harder, but it leads to a better place. Yes, our road is longer, but we travel it together."

The president took the podium after being affectionately introduced by his wife Michelle Obama, who starred on the first night of the Democrats' convention in Charlotte, N.C.

Obama was careful to strike a delicate balance, infusing voters with hope while remaining realistic about the challenges ahead, and sensitive to those Americans still batted by a lengthy recession and slow recovery.

His tone was hopeful and forward looking, a reflection of the reality of his record: unemployment remains stubbornly above eight percent and 67 percent of Americans think the country is "on the wrong track."

WATCH President Obama's full speech:

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Obama's speech comes four years after he promised the nation an administration of hope and change, and he suggested that his promise has been battered but not beaten.

"That hope has been tested by the cost of war, by one of the worst economic crises in history, and by political gridlock," he said.

At another point he said, "I recognize that times have changed since I first spoke to this convention. The times have changed, and so have I."

The president looked forward to what his second administration will look like, laying out a series of goals for the manufacturing, energy, education, national security sectors, and for the deficit.

He promised to create a million new manufacturing jobs in the next four years and 600,000 new jobs in the natural gas sector by the end of the decade.

He also promised to cut in half the growth of college tuition costs over the next 10 years and invest in the economy money no longer being spent to execute the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"On every issue, the choice you face won't be just between two candidates or two parties," he said. "It will be a choice between two different paths for America."

Obama positioned himself as the experienced candidate, tested by war and proven in foreign policy.

"In a world of new threats and new challenges, you can choose leadership that has been tested and proven," he said. "Four years ago, I promised to end the war in Iraq. We did. I promised to refocus on the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11. We have... al Qaeda is on the path to defeat, and Osama bin Laden is dead," he said to cheers.

Obama said Americans had a choice on the economy. "We can give more tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas, or we can start rewarding companies that open new plants and train new workers and create new jobs here, in the United States of America," he said.

Biden stuck with a theme of the convention that Obama rescued the auto industry and was on path to fix the economy.

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Taking a swipe at Romney for saying Obama should have let the car companies go bankrupt, Biden said, "I just don't think he understood what saving the automobile industry meant to all of America. I think he saw it the Bain way. Balance sheets."

He also retold the story of how the president considered the risks and gave the "Go" order to get al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, one of the clear triumphs of the Obama administration.

The president's enthusiasm Thursday night may have been bolstered by a Wall Street rally. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 closed to four-year highs Thursday after the European Central Bank announced a plan that may provide some long-term assistance to struggling European markets.

Despite that ray of political sunshine, Obama's message was starkly different and less lofty in scope compared to the heady promises he made in 2008. Then, before he was left to contend with the realities of the White House, Obama promised to usher in a new era of bipartisanship, get unemployment below eight percent, open negotiations with Iran, and bring peace to Israel and the Palestinians.

Obama advisers on Thursday tempered expectations, saying a single acceptance speech could not necessarily widen the president's lead in a tightly contested election.

"Listen, this is a very tight race," David Plouffe, architect of Obama's 2008 campaign and a White House adviser, told Good Morning America Thursday.

"We've always believed that there's very little elasticity in this election. I don't think you should expect a big bounce. I think this is a race where we've got a small but important lead into battleground states," he said.

"It's going to be very, very close all the way out, but I think the Republicans had an opportunity last week to lay out for the American people what they would do for the middle class. Our sense is that they missed the mark, so we think we're making a lot of progress this week. But again, you're not going to see big bounces in this election. I think for the next 61 days it's going to remain tight as a tick," he said.

A number of party loyalists and activists, from actress Scarlett Johansson to Caroline Kennedy, took addressing the arena. Former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, however, fired up the crowd by saying that Obama's bailout saved the U.S. auto industry along with one million American jobs.

She counted off in a rising voice how many jobs were saved in many of the battleground states like Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, Wisconsin and Michigan.

In contrast, she reminded the crowd that Mitt Romney said the auto companies should have been allowed to go bankrupt, and she portrayed him as an out-of-touch millionaire.

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"He loves his cars so much they even have their own elevator," she said referring to building plans at a Romney home that include an elevator for his car collection.

"In Romney's world, the cars get the elevator and the workers get the shaft," she roared.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'm here to tell you what I think you already know, that, I watch it up close, bravery resides in the heart of Barack Obama and, time and time again, I witnessed him summon it," Biden said. "This man has courage in his soul, compassion in his heart and a spine of steel, and because of all the actions he took, because of the calls he made, because of the determination of American workers and the unparalleled bravery of our special forces, we can now proudly say what you've heard me say the past six months."

WATCH Biden's full speech:

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He then delivered the now-familiar line: "Osama bin Laden is dead, and General Motors is alive!"

In more frank terms than first lady Michelle Obama or former President Bill Clinton, Biden contrasted Mitt Romney's upbringing with Obama's and his own. Both his and Romney's fathers worked in the automobile industry.

"I'm sure he grew up loving cars as much as I did," Biden said. "But what I don't understand, what I don't think he understood, I don't think he understood that saving the automobile worker, saving the industry, what it meant to all of America."

Biden said Romney saw the auto bailout "the Bain way ... in terms of balance sheets and write-offs."

He cast Romney as out of touch with the American worker.

The video shown before Biden's speech depicted those Americans Biden sought to distance from the Republican presidential nominee -- construction workers, electricians and health care workers -- all part of Biden's connection to the middle class. The starting sequence appeared to be through the window of a train -- a throwback to Biden's love of the locomotive industry. He has repeatedly said on the campaign trail that he has taken Amtrak between Delaware and Washington, D.C., more than 7,000 times.

Throughout his speech, Biden cast himself as Obama's sidekick.

"One of the things I learned about Barack is the enormity of his heart. And I think he learned about me the depth of my loyalty to him," Biden said, pausing for applause. "And there's another thing, another thing that has bound us together these past four years. We had a pretty good idea what all those families, all you Americans in trouble were going through, in part because our own families had gone through similar struggles."

Biden's son, Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, who spoke at the convention earlier in the day, is an Iraq war veteran. At the end of his speech, Biden reiterated the Obama campaign's commitment to supporting the troops.

"The only truly sacred obligation we have is to prepare those who we send to war and care for them when they come home from war," Biden said. "I want to acknowledge, as we should every night, the incredible debt we owe to the families of those 6,473 fallen angels and those 49,746 wounded, thousands critically, thousands who will need our help for the rest of their lives. Folks...we must never, ever forget their sacrifice and always keep them in our care and in our prayers."

The economy is on the mend, he is expected to tell voters from the Democratic National Convention in a speech that targets the middle class, but a real recovery requires time and patience.

"I'm looking forward to laying out what's at stake in this election," Obama said in an afternoon conference call to supporters.

The president's enthusiasm may have been bolstered by a Wall Street rally. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 closed to four-year highs Thursday after the European Central Bank announced a plan that may provide some long-term assistance to struggling European markets.

Nevertheless, Obama's message will be starkly different and strikingly narrow in scope compared to the lofty promises he made in 2008. Then, before he was left to contend with the realities of the White House, Obama promised to usher in a new era of bipartisanship, get unemployment below eight percent, open negotiations with Iran, and bring peace to Israel and the Palestinians.

Already, Obama campaign officials are tempering expectations, setting voters up not to expect Obama to set the bar quite so high this time around.

Moreover, advisers are not promising that Obama's speech, following a rousing address by former President Bill Clinton on Wednesday, will say anything to convince undecided voters or widen his lead in a tightly contested election.

"Listen, this is a very tight race," David Plouffe, architect of Obama's 2008 campaign and a White House adviser, told Good Morning America Thursday.

"We've always believed that there's very little elasticity in this election. I don't think you should expect a big bounce. I think this is a race where we've got a small but important lead into battleground states," he said.

Plouffe hinted that Obama would continue to strike the theme nearly every DNC speaker this week has hit, that the Democrats are the best choice for reviving a struggling middle class.

"It's going to be very, very close all the way out, but I think the Republicans had an opportunity last week to lay out for the American people what they would do for the middle class. Our sense is that they missed the mark, so we think we're making a lot of progress this week. But again, you're not going to see big bounces in this election. I think for the next 61 days it's going to remain tight as a tick," he said.

Thursday night's primetime schedule kicks off with Vice President Joe Biden, who will introduce the president.

Traditionally, the running mate speaks the night before, but last night the campaign bet on Bill Clinton to remind voters of the prosperity the country experienced the last time Democrats were in office.

The former president delivered with a speech that both reminded voters of what Obama has accomplished -- passing health care reform, adding new jobs and killing Osama bin Laden -- and what he still has left to do.

"I understand the challenge we face. I know many Americans are still angry and frustrated with the economy. Though employment is growing, banks are beginning to lend and even housing prices are picking up a bit, too many people don't feel it," he said.

"No president -- not me or any of my predecessors -- could have repaired all the damage in just four years. But conditions are improving and if you'll renew the president's contract you will feel it," he said.

Obama was slated to speak at the Bank of America Stadium, which seats nearly 75,000 people. Due to storms over Charlotte, the campaign moved his speech to the smaller Time Warner Cable Arena, where the rest of this week's convention has taken place.

Republicans pounced on the change of venue, accusing Obama of abandoning the larger stadium because he would be unable to fill all of the seats there.

Alex Wong/Getty Images(CHARLOTTE, N.C.) -- President Obama emerged from offstage to bear hug Bill Clinton at the Democratic National Convention Wednesday night moments after Clinton, giving a rousing speech nominating Obama for re-election, called the president a man who is "cool on the outside" but "burns for America on the inside."

Once a political adversary, Bill Clinton went to bat for the president, playing the dual parts of professor and preacher, firing up the crowd and explaining just how Obama has succeeded in working to fix a flailing economy.

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Clinton strode to the podium to the strains of his old presidential campaign theme song "Don't Stop," and a roar of applause from Democrats who remember the boom times of his two administrations.

"I want to nominate a man cool on the outside but burning for America on the inside....I want Barack Obama to be the next president of the United States and I proudly nominate him as the standard bearer of the Democratic Party," Clinton told the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C.

He complimented Obama for his ability to work with those who ran against him, saying Obama appointed several people to top jobs who had supported Clinton's wife Hillary Clinton during their bitter battle for the Democratic presidential nomination four years ago.

"Heck, he even appointed Hillary," Clinton said. Hillary Clinton is Obama's secretary of state.

Articulating the successes of the Obama administration in 30 minutes, Clinton said President Obama's policies were working to fix the economy.

"I understand the challenge we face. I know many Americans are still angry and frustrated with the economy. Though employment is growing, banks are beginning to lend and even housing prices are picking up a bit, too many people don't feel it," he said.

"No president -- not me or any of my predecessors -- could have repaired all the damage in just four years. But conditions are improving and if you'll renew the president's contract you will feel it," he said.

The Romney campaign has made a point to ask voters if they are better off today than they were four years ago. Clinton twice answered Romney's question head on and in the affirmative.

"Are we better off than we were when he took office, with an economy in free fall, losing 750,000 jobs a month? The answer is yes," he roared.

Clinton celebrated Obama's signature healthcare law, pointing out that more than three million young people are now insured and that healthcare spending has grown under four percent for first time in 50 years.

"So are we all better off because President Obama fought for [healthcare reform] and passed it," Clinton asked. "You bet we are," he answered to applause.

Clinton attacked GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, architect of the Republican budget plan, for being disingenuous last week at the Republican National Convention.

"When Congressman Ryan looked into the TV camera and attacked President Obama's 'biggest coldest power play' in raiding Medicare, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. You see, that $716 billion is exactly the same amount of Medicare savings Congressman Ryan had in his own budget," he said.

"It takes some brass to attack a guy for doing what you did," Clinton said to laughs and cheers.

Their vision is clear, she said: "I've got mine, and the rest of you are on your own."

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Warren, who founded the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2010, is the Harvard professor who became a YouTube hero among Democrats when she asked a small gathering of Bay State supporters, "You built a factory out there? Good for you -- but I want to be clear: You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for."

Warren has never backed off those remarks, though after her speech in Charlotte, Republicans can be expected to double down on their "we built it" attacks on her and President Obama.

Stuck in a 50-50 race with incumbent Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., Warren has pinned her candidacy on a stark populism.

"People feel like the system is rigged against them," she told conventioneers. "And here's the painful part: They're right. The system is rigged."

She also seized on one of Mitt Romney's signature gaffes, when he told a crowd at the Iowa State Fair, "Corporations are people."

Warren replied Wednesday night: "No, Gov. Romney, corporations are not people. People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick, they cry, they dance. They live, they love and they die. And that matters. That matters because we don't run this country for corporations, we run it for people!"

The remarks were right in line for Warren, whose Senate campaign often recalls her career of fighting for consumer rights and the middle class.

In 2008, she was given the job of overseeing the allocation of funds from the TARP program. During that time, Warren cultivated her liberal star, taking on the big banks in public, and appearing frequently as a guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Warren was passed up by President Obama when he picked a chief for her Consumer Financial Protection Bureau because of fears that she would not survive a partisan Senate confirmation hearing.

So from her position at Harvard Law School, Warren turned her sights on her state's Senate race, tossing her hat into the ring in September 2011.

JIM WATSON/AFP/GettyImages(CHARLOTTE, N.C.) -- The Georgetown law student shut out of a congressional hearing on contraception earlier this year is basking in the glow of the Democratic National Convention's primetime stage.

Speaking before a fired-up crowd at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., Wednesday night, Sandra Fluke painted a stark picture of what a country led by Republican Mitt Romney could be, calling it “an America in which access to birth control is controlled by people who will never use it, in which politicians redefine rape so survivors are victimized all over again,” she said to huge cheers from the audience.

Fluke also singled out Romney’s running mate Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., who worked on legislation that would have redefined rape, banned abortion in all cases, and cut off funding for abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood.

“It would be an America in which you have a new vice president who co-sponsored a bill that would allow pregnant women to die preventable deaths in our emergency rooms,” she said.

The young law student then gave a hearty endorsement for a country headed by President Obama.

“An America in which our president, when he hears a young woman has been verbally attacked, thinks of his daughters -- not his delegates or donors -- and stands with all women,” said Fluke. “And strangers come together, reach out and lift her up. And then, instead of trying to silence her, you invite me here, and give me a microphone, to amplify our voice.”

Talk of a woman’s choice has flooded the political arena of late, and Fluke played to that, signaling to Americans that the choice that matters the most is the one they will make this November.